Venomous Passion, Perilous Devotion
by Emuri
Summary: A danger she forever reserved hush-hush. A curse she never desired. She could destroy with a single touch. Ichihime AU.


Ok, so this is the one I said was inspired from a dream. I really do not know why this played out in my head while I was asleep, but it did, so I decided to use it cuz it sounded cool. xD

Yeah, so sorry it's really short, but that's just cuz it's the Prologue, if you may. I hope to get more chapters up eventually! And I kinda wanna start my own Ichihime drabble series. I'll see about that too.

I would say the time this takes place in is during the Renaissance … whenever they wore corsets haha. Or Sleeping Beauty time.

(Ichihime will come later).

**Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters.**

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**Venomous Passion, Perilous Devotion**

_Prologue_

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Mossy stone. Her bare feet felt the sponginess of the sickly green moss and cold, dry rocky structure beneath them, her toes wriggling at the awkward insignificant sensation.

Feeling his revolting hand on her shoulder, as he spoke soft, wispy words, she shuddered. "Prepare to meet your death at the bottom of that courtyard," he said, looking at the square fifty feet below with a repulsive serene expression on his countenance. Just one miniscule step off the edge of the rock-strewn ledge of the decrepit quad in the center of the aged large property and she would soon drown in her own pool of burgundy blood, dead and hushed.

She swallowed her own saliva with true difficulty as she pondered on her near lethal fate, gawking at the near empty courtyard below, a sole broken down fountain in the center. The entire place was feeble and lifeless, crawling with dead flowers, ailing vines, creeping plants, and fractured grey stone making up the ground and walls. She was currently standing in an opening ever so close to the fatal edge she would soon be forced off of.

"I still do not know your little secret and unfortunately, I suppose I never will. Honestly I have given up trying to discover your mystery for all these three years… I am so sick of you Orihime-chan," he chuckled. He stared into her large grey eyes, now in very close proximity, twirling a long piece of her auburn tresses in his long index finger.

She was fearful of her close destiny, not of him. She stared back into his eyes with composed, calm resolve. "And I am sick of you Aizen-sama," she declared, unfazed.

A flit of anger blazed across his light brown orbs, his companion Gin quietly snickering a few feet away from the two. Recovering from his ephemeral state of rage, his lips forming a thin line soon evolved into a smirk. "You have become bolder over the course of this past year. Ignoring me, defying the rules I set for you, speaking to me in such a brazen manner. Your eyes do not even display a trace of fear like they used to. You have grown Orihime and how beautifully you have…," he declared, a slightly perverse meaning behind his words defined by the tone of his voice. "But now, unluckily, all that striking development and growth has gone to waste as you will not live to grow any longer. The only thing that will grow is my satisfaction and triumph… when you are gone."

The words were like a stab in the heart. She did not want to die, she wanted to live. She was only seventeen years old and had a whole life to live, breathe, and exist. Even though all she wanted was to find her true love, she believed she would never find him with her dangerous ability and she had accepted that fate, but she still wanted to live.

Coming from behind her, Aizen gently placed his hands on the small of her back over her corset, inching her forward, closer and closer to the edge of the opening. He whispered in her ear, "It is over, princess. Good bye."

With those words said, Orihime quickly turned around to face him right before he could attempt to push her off the edge, tears threatening to prick at her eyes. Aizen smirked at this action of hers. "Do you think you can save yourself? If you move only two inches backward, you die. You cannot win."

Hastily the auburn haired young woman brought her lips to his. Aizen's eyes grew an unhealthy size wider at her ludicrously astonishing act. She slowly pulled away, the unborn tears now slowly and freely rolling down her cheeks. She averted her gaze, her face only two inches from his. She then looked him straight in the eye whispering, "My lips are poisonous."

Her tears continued to fall, as she choked back a sob, watching him collapse to the floor… unresponsive and numb. He lay there in a heap on the ground, eyes wide and shocked, never to be closed again. She never wanted to kill that man no matter how much detestation and loathing she harbored for him, but for once in her entire being, she desired to be selfish and salvage the life that belonged to her. At the very least, he finally learned what her secret was while he took his last breath.

She picked up the skirt of her dress and ran through the dark stony hall opposite the opening into the courtyard, away from Aizen's lifeless body. She took one last glance at the scene behind her once she was several yards away, still running. Gin was already by Aizen's side and it was quite palpable that Aizen was unresponsive. Gin just devastatingly sat there staring at his best friend's motionless corpse. Viewing the scene, even from afar, tore her fragile heart to thin shreds. Not only did she hurt herself or Aizen by murdering him, but she hurt his best friend as well. She felt like the most wretched vile creature she was.

Although she was crying even harder, she willed herself to dart as fast as she possibly could, away from what she did, away from the crime she committed, but chiefly from the horrible life she had been living with those men.

After an agonizingly long half hour of unremitting running, Orihime soon found herself in the leafy brown and green forest. Panting and gasping for air, feeling as though she would fall unconscious any second, she discovered shelter under a large tree and pensively sat under it. Thoughts and images flashed across her mind of Aizen and his deceased remains. She could not grasp the reality of the situation she was in. Bringing her knees up to her chest and hugging her legs, she began to tremble as the actuality of her circumstances all set in.

She could not return to her home. That house belonged to Aizen and she had no right to enter it after killing him and she feared that Gin would even attempt to murder her as well if she ever returned to that house. She would not be capable of bearing his presence in any case, not after what she carried out just a little while ago.

_'I will be fine, I will be fine. I just have to find a place to stay,'_ Orihime repeatedly reassured herself. Only she did not know her way through the vast woodland full of brown trees, green leaves, and beautiful streams. She had no clothing or any valued items in her company, except her light blue hibiscus hairpins, pinned on both sides of her head, holding back her bangs. She touched the sides of her head, searching for them; just to be sure they were in their rightful place.

Her pink puffy eyes grew large when she did not feel the flowery contours of one of her hairpins. She immediately commenced in searching for the lost hairpin, her hands recklessly feeling the earth beneath her in hopes of having dropped the hair piece near her. _'No, no, no, I couldn't have left it back there by the courtyard, could I? I can't go back.'_ Crying at the meager consideration of that likelihood, she could not take hold of the appalling luck she had had today. She murdered a man to save her own life and now the one thing that, beyond doubt, meant her the world had vanished.

She slipped the one remaining hairpin out of her auburn mane, placing it in her small palm. With her other hand, she traced the lines of the beautiful hairpin: a gift from her older brother. A lone teardrop fell upon the blue pin. She was tremendously disappointed in herself for losing the other pin, her most treasured endowment.

She openly allowed more tears to fall, her face in her hands. She had to attempt to release any negative energy before she could go in search of civilization or to go on in any way at all.

Hearing a twig crack, her head snapped up searching for the source of the noise. _'Please do not let it be Gin, please,'_ she continually prayed. To her flooding relief, it was not him.

Coming from underneath a few bushes, a slithering metallic white snake emerged, making its appearance known. Continuously sticking in and out its tongue, it came to a halt right in front of her shaking form, its beady black eyes looking as if they were staring at her.

For some reason, unbeknownst to her, she was not scared of the snake. She examined the striking, shining white scales and the hints of light purples and pinks given off its reptilian skin when reflected in the light. Never having seen such a gorgeous creature in her life, she gawked at it in wonder.

She internally questioned whether it was venomous or not. If it was, she knew exactly how that felt to be. She was just like the white snake: beautiful, yet poisonous. With the simplest kiss anywhere on the skin, she could damage or kill someone, a living, breathing human being. She never even had the capability of displaying affection to her older brother with uncomplicated kisses on the cheek and he was the most important person to her in her life… before he passed away. What she feared the most was one day not being able to physically express affection to her true love… if she ever found him. No man would want to kiss her lips or love her at all for that matter with her disgustingly hazardous mouth. She could kill with a single touch. No man would want to be subjected to such a precarious idea or become a victim at any rate. She herself was a vile, toxic creature and she had to exist recognizing this all her days.

She reserved her secret completely to herself. Only her older brother and other late family members knew of her curse. Aizen had known she had a secret and all he had wanted was to discover the enigma and own her. With his psychotic conduct, he would go to any measures to unravel the mystery of a young, bubbly girl.

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All right, so I hope you guys enjoyed reading this and again, I apologize for the length, but there will be longer chapters to come!

So please review! I'd really like to know your thoughts! (:

~Yono~


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